the operation, General Hay of the Big Red One set forth some of the reasons for this failure.

Several factors contributed:

The proximity of a privileged sanctuary to the reported locations of COSVN and Headquarters, 9th VC Division.

The extreme difficulty of establishing a seal with sufficient troop density to deny infiltration routes to VC units thoroughly familiar with the dense jungle terrain.

The difficulty of gaining complete surprise, as a result of extensive repositioning of troops and logistical support prior to D-Day, in spite of the efforts devoted to deception measures.

Looking back many months after JUNCTION GTY ended, General Westmoreland, in his Report on the War in Vietnam, summarized the effect of the operation in this fashion:

(In addition to the enemy losses) we constructed three airfields capable of handling C-130's, erected a bridge entering (War Zone C) on its eastern edge, cleared innumerable helicopter landing zones, and fortified two camps in which Special Forces teams with CIDG garrisons remained as we withdrew. Henceforth, we would be able to enter this important but diffi-cult area with relative ease and with much smaller forces . . . .

An inviolate Viet Cong stronghold for many years, War Zone C was now vulnerable to allied forces any time we choose to enter.

General Giap portrayed JUNCTION CITY as a "big victory" rather than the serious defeat it was. The North Vietnamese continued to per-petuate the myth of crippling U.S. losses and defeat. This time, if anything, the reports were more exaggerated than usual. According to official North Vietnamese reports, 13,500 allied soldiers were killed in JUNCTION CITY. . . . The enemy claimed 993 vehicles destroyed (800 of them armored) and the destruction of 119 allied artillery pieces. . . . Exaggeration of this magnitude by the enemy was a commonplace. Whether self-deception or carefully contrived myth, its existence played an important part in future decisions the enemy was to make . . . .

However, General Giap's glowing account of victory was belied by high-level defectors a year later as they revealed the full impact of JUNCTION CITY upon the enemy:

They commented-and captured documents confirmed-that the operation was essentially an enemy "disaster." According to these knowl-edgeable defectors, the loss of major base areas and the resulting dete-rioration of local forces in III Corps forced the enemy high command to make basic revisions in tactics. JUNCTION CITY convinced the enemy command that continuing to base main force units in close proximity to the key population areas would be increasingly foolhardy. From that time on the enemy made increasing use of Cambodian sanctuaries for his bases, hospitals, training centers, and supply depots.

A turning point in the war had been reached.